Listening #13

Click here for background info and poetic translation

And here for more about Poulenc's life

Francis Poulenc's song, Les chemins de l'amour, text by Jean Anouihl.

Listening #12

Les Chansons de Bilitis is a collection of erotic poetry by Pierre Louÿs published in Paris in 1894 (see 1894 in poetry).

The book's sensual poems are in the manner of Sappho; the introduction claims they were found on the walls of a tomb in Cyprus, written by a woman of Ancient Greece called Bilitis, a courtesan and contemporary of Sappho, to whose 'life' Louÿs dedicated a small section of his book. On publication, the volume deceived even the most expert of scholars. Though the poems were actually clever fabulations, authored by Louÿs himself, they are still considered important literature.

The Songs of Bilitis are separated into three cycles, each representative of a phase of Bilitis' life: Bucolicsin Pamphylia— childhood and first sexual encounters, Elegies at Mytilene— indulgence in homosexual sensuality, and Epigrams in the Isle of Cyprus— life as a courtesan. Each cycle progresses toward a melancholy conclusion, each conclusion signalling a new, more complex chapter of experience, emotion, and sexual exploration. One of Louÿs' technical accomplishments was to coincide Bilitis' growing maturity and emotional complexity with her changing views of divinity and the world around her— after leaving Pamphylia and Mytiline, she becomes involved in intricate mysteries, moving away from a mythical world inhabited by satyrs and Naiads. This change is perhaps best reflected by the symbolic death of the satyrs and Naiads in "The Tomb of the Naiads".

In 1897, Claude Debussy, Louÿs' close friend, composed a musical adaptation of three of the poems: "La flûte de Pan", "La Chevelure" and "Le Tombeau des Naïades," set as songs for female voice and piano. Debussy returned to the collection in a more elaborate fashion in 1901, when he composed music entitled "Six Epigraphes Antiques" for a recitation of six of Louÿs' poems. These pieces, also collectively titled "Chansons de Bilitis," were scored for two flutes, two harps, and celesta including another six poems making a total of twelve scored poems. According to contemporary sources the recitation and music were accompanied by tableaux vivants as well. Apparently only one private performance of the entire creation took place in Venice.

Go here for text and poetic translation

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Listening #11

"Beau soir" (Beautiful Evening) by Claude Debussy.  Text by Paul Bourget.

Lorsque au soleil couchant les rivières sont roses,
Et qu'un tiède frisson court sur les champs de blé,
Un conseil d'être heureux semble sortir des choses
  Et monter vers le cœur troublé ;

Un conseil de goûter le charme d'être au monde,
Cependant qu'on est jeune et que le soir est beau,
Car nous nous en allons comme s'en va cette onde :
  Elle à la mer, -- nous au tombeau !

English:

When streams turn pink in the setting sun,
And a slight shudder rushes through the wheat fields,
A plea for happiness seems to rise out of all things
  And it climbs up towards the troubled heart.

A plea to relish the charm of life
While there is youth and the evening is fair,
For we pass away, as the wave passes:
  The wave to the sea, we to the grave.

Listening #10

Hélène Bouvier sings "Printemps qui commence" from
Samson et Dalila by Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921)

Samson and Delilah (French: Samson et Dalila), Op. 47, is a grand opera in three acts and four scenes by Camille Saint-Saëns to a French libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire. It was first performed in Weimar at the Grossherzogliches (Grand Ducal) Theater (now the Staatskapelle Weimar) on 2 December 1877 in a German translation.

The opera is based on the Biblical tale of Samson and Delilah found in Chapter 16 of the Book of Judges in the Old Testament. It is the only opera by Saint-Saëns that is regularly performed. The second act love scene in Delilah's tent is one of the set pieces that define French opera. Two of Delilah's arias are particularly well known: "Printemps qui commence" and "Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix" ("My heart opens itself to your voice", also known as "Softly awakes my heart"), the latter of which is one of the most popular recital pieces in the mezzo-soprano/contralto repertoire.

Synopsis of what's happening:

Act 1

A square in Gaza at night

In a square outside the temple of Dagon, a group of Hebrews beg Jehovah for relief from their bondage to the Philistines in a melancholy chorus ("Dieu, d'Israël"), which leads into a fugue ("Nous avons vu nos cités renversées"). Samson tries to revive theIsraelites' morale and faith in God ("Arrêtez, ô mes frères") in a rousing aria set against the chorus's continuous prayer. Abimelech, the Philistine governor, appears and taunts the Israelites, saying that they are helpless because their god has abandoned them. He further states that his god, Dagon, is far superior ("Ce Dieu que votre voix implore"). The Hebrews cower in fear before Abimelech until Samson incites them into defiant action. Enraged, Abimelech attacks an unarmed Samson with his sword. Samson manages to wrest the sword from Abimelech and kills him.

Afraid of what might now happen, the Hebrews flee, abandoning Samson. The High Priest of Dagon comes from the Philistine temple and curses the Hebrews and Samson's prodigious strength. A messenger arrives and informs the High Priest that the Hebrews are destroying the harvest. He responds with a further curse that alludes to his plot to utilize Delilah's beauty to outwit Samson's strength ("Qu'enfin une compagne infâme trahisse son amour!").

As dawn breaks the Hebrews lift up a humble prayer to God in a style reminiscent of plainchant. Out of the temple emerges Dalila along with several priestesses of Dagon. As they walk down the temple steps, they sing of the pleasures of spring. Dalila engages seductively with Samson proclaiming that he has won her heart and bids him to come with her to her home in the valley of Sorek. As she tries to charm him, a trio forms as an old Hebrew warns of the danger this woman presents and Samson prays for God's protection from Dalila's charms. In an attempt to seduce Samson away from his leadership of the Israelite uprising, Dalila and the priestesses begin a sexually charged dance for him accompanied by a tambourine. After the dance, Dalila sings how spring is blossoming all around her yet, in her heart, she feels like it is still winter ("Printemps qui commence"). As Samson struggles with his desire for Dalila, the old Hebrew repeats his cautionary plea. His warning, however, is made in vain and the curtain closes as Samson meets Delilah's gaze with every intention of going to her nearby dwelling.

Printemps qui commence.
Portant l'espérance
Aux coeurs amoureux,
Ton souffle qui passe
De la terre efface
Les jours malheureux.
Tout brûle en notre âme,
Et ta douce flamme
Vient sécher nos pleurs;
Tu rends à la terre,
Par un doux mystère,
Les fruits et les fleurs.
En vain je suis belle!
Mon coeur plein d'amour,
Pleurant l'infidèle,
Attend son retour!
Vivant d'espérance,
Mon couer désolé
Garde souvenance
Du bonheur passé!
A la nuit tombante
J'irai, triste amante,
M'asseoir au torrent,
L'attendre en pleurant
Chassant ma tristesse,
S'il revient un jour,
A lui ma tendresse
Et la douce ivresse,
Qu'un brûlant amour
Garde à son retour!

The first of spring
bringing hope
to lovers' hearts
your sigh rising
above the earth blots out
unhappy times.
our soul afire
and your sweet flame
dries our tears.
the soft mystery of you
spreads the earth
with fruit and flowers.
no point in being pretty.
my lovesick heart
mourns for my betrayer
but pines for his return.
my desolate heart
remembers
lost happiness.
as night falls
sadly in love I wander
to sit by the river
and wait for him in tears
driving away my sorrow
if he come back one day
I wish him my love
and sweet intoxication
may this burning love
keep until his return.

Listening #9

Gabriel Fauré dedicated to Panzéra his song-cycle, L'horizon chimérique, composed in the autumn of 1921. The young baritone's creation of the new score at a concert of the Société Nationale de Musique, on 13 May 1922, was a resounding success and made Panzéra's name.


**I hope you listen to all of them, but only the first song is required.  


Text: Jean de La Ville de Mirmont (1886–1914)

La Mer est infinie

La Mer est infinie et mes rêves sont fous.
La mer chante au soleil en battant les falaises
Et mes rêves légers ne se sentent plus d'aise
De danser sur la mer comme des oiseaux soûls.

Le vaste mouvement des vagues les emporte,
La brise les agite et les roule en ses plis ;
Jouant dans le sillage, ils feront une escorte
Aux vaisseaux que mon coeur dans leur fuite a suivis.

Ivres d'air et de sel et brûlés par l'écume
De la mer qui console et qui lave des pleurs
Ils connaîtront le large et sa bonne amertume ;
Les goélands perdus les prendront pour des leurs.

English:

The sea is endless and my dreams are mad.
The sea sings to the sun, lashing the cliffs,
And my flighty dreams taste only of the pleasure
Of dancing over the sea like drunken birds.

The vast motion of the waves carries them,
The breeze shakes and tumbles them in the folds;
Playing in the wake, they form an escort
To the ships my heart has followed in their flight.

Wild with air and salt and scalded by the foam
Of a sea that consoles and washes tears away,
They will know the ocean and its good bitterness;
Stray gulls will take them for their own.

Listening #8

Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (7 January 1899 – 30 January 1963) was a French composer and a member of the French group Les Six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music.


"C" is one of Poulenc's most beautiful songs, one of his few direct responses to the German conquest of France in World War II.

Poet Louis Aragon joined the Resistance after the German occupation. He must have been high on the Gestapo hit list, for he was a founder of the surrealist movement -- one of the artistic currents labeled "entartete" (degenerate) by the Nazis. Even worse, he had been a dedicated Communist and supporter of Stalin since 1927. His role in the Resistance was to encourage and organize the intellectual Resistance movement.

Poulenc set two of Aragon's Resistance poems in September and October of 1942 and arranged for them to be clandestinely and anonymously published. The two poems do not constitute a song cycle, even though they are united in the anti-Occupation sentiment that is underneath the surface of their texts. Rather, they are two songs conceived as separate and complete statements, published together for convenience.

Aragon evokes the age of chivalry in ancient France, both in his imagery and in his choice of verse form, selecting a Medieval and Renaissance convention of using the same rhyme in each of its 18 lines. (They all rhyme with "Cé," an abbreviation for a place where bridges cross the Loire, and the ending of the first and last lines.) 

The opening verses of the poem depict the poet recalling those ancient chivalric days while crossing one of the bridges: Images of a wounded knight, the castle of a "mad duke," and a meadow where an "eternal betrothed" dances.

The poet jerks back to reality. Now he sees "the overturned cars and the unprimed weapons and the ill-dried tears."

"O my France, O my forsaken France," concludes the song, "I have crossed the bridges of C."

Poulenc himself described the texture of the song in the valuable record of his song-writing career, Journal de mes melodies (Diary of my Songs) by pointing out its difficult pedaling and its use of quarter-note chords. These, he says, "should be veiled."

His great interpreter, Pierre Bernac, considered it essential that the pianist no less than the singer achieve a perfect legato (smooth flow from note to note). Bernac, writing in his book Francis Poulenc, The Man and his Songs, assessed it as "one of his most deeply moving and successful works." Fellow composerCharles Koechlin agreed, stating that it "breathes the soul of our wounded homeland" (quoted by Benjamin Ivry in his biography of Poulenc).

Listening 7

Chanson Perpétuelle, by Ernest Chausson, text by Charles Cros

Text:

Bois frissonnants, ciel étoilé
Mon bien-aimé s'en est allé
Emportant mon coeur désolé.

Vents, que vos plaintives rumeurs,
Que vos chants, rossignols charmeurs,
Aillent lui dire que je meurs.

Le premier soir qu'il vint ici,
Mon âme fut à sa merci;
De fierté je n'eus plus souci.

Mes regards étaient pleins d'aveux.
Il me prit dans ses bras nerveux
Et me baisa près des cheveux.

J'en eus un grand frémissement.
Et puis je ne sais comment
Il est devenu mon amant.

Je lui disais: "Tu m'aimeras
Aussi longtemps que tu pourras."
Je ne dormais bien qu'en ses bras. 

Mais lui, sentant son coeur éteint,
S'en est allé l'autre matin
Sans moi, dans un pays lointain.

Puisque je n'ai plus mon ami,
Je mourrai dans l'étang, parmi
Les fleurs sous le flot endormi.

Sur le bord arrivée, au vent
Je dirai son nom, en rêvant
Que là je l'attendis souvent.

Et comme en un linceul doré,
Dans mes cheveux défaits, au gré
Du vent je m'abandonnerai.

Les bonheurs passés verseront
Leur douce lueur sur mon front,
Et les joncs verts m'enlaceront.

Et mon sein croira, frémissant
Sous l'enlacement caressant,
 Subir l'étreinte de l'absent.

(English poetic translation)

Trembling trees, starry sky
 My beloved has gone away
 Bearing with him my desolate heart. 
 
 Winds, let your plaintive noises
 Let your songs, charming nightingales,
 Tell him that I die. 
 
 The first night he came here,
 My soul was at his mercy;
 I no longer cared about my pride. 
 
 My glances were full of promise. 
 He took me into his trembling arms
 And kissed me near the hair. 
 
 I felt a great quivering. 
 And then, I don't know how
 He became my lover. 
 
 I said to him: "You will love me 
 As long as you are able." 
 I never slept as well as in his arms. 
 
 But he, feeling his heart fade,
 Left the other day
 Without me, for a foreign land. 
 
 Since I no longer have my friend,
 I will die in this pool, among
 The flowers under the sleeping current. 
 
 Arriving on the shoreline,
 I will speak his name to the wind,
 In a dream that I await him there. 
 
 And like in a gilded shroud
 With hair tousled at the wind's whim,
 I will let myself go. 
 
 The happy hours of the past 
 will glimmer on my face,
 And the green reeds will entrap me. 
 
 And my breast, shuddering under the caress
  of their entwinement, 
 will believe it submits to the embrace of the one who left.